


Past Imperfect

by dracoqueen22



Category: Bleach
Genre: Alternate Canon, Attempted Fix-It, Gen, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-19
Updated: 2014-05-19
Packaged: 2018-01-25 16:21:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1654835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dracoqueen22/pseuds/dracoqueen22
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The war has been won, but at a price that seems too costly to pay. Everything has been traced back to a single, defining moment. And Ichigo makes a choice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Protasis

**Author's Note:**

> This was written, posted, and completed by March 2012 therefore anything that occurred in the manga afterward is ignored. 
> 
> It is a series of scenes, a truncated version of a larger and more expansive fanfic that I intended to write until interest in the fandom waned. It was still a good idea and now, I actually like the concise version better. I hope you enjoy it as well.

A month later, the death toll rises, but the missing-in-action list never seems to shorten. The more bodies that are pulled from the rubble, the less the survivors are relieved or soothed. Funerals are an everyday occurrence, but the morgue doesn't empty, and the work never ends.

It's hot. The sun beaming down relentlessly, not a cloud in sight. Most of the surviving Shinigami have stripped down as they dig through the debris, each lifted plank of wood or stone causing dust to rise in the air. It coats their skin, their nostrils, turning them all the same greyish shade.

Ichigo is no different.

He sighs, sucks in a dusty breath, and lets a piece of wall slide to the side. Ash puffs up in its wake, but there's nothing underneath. Ichigo isn't sure if this is a good thing. Not anymore.

He straightens, back screeching in protest, and swipes his wrist over his sweating forehead. His fingers are starting to crack and bleed again from digging through blasted rock. Hanatarou will have to heal them, looking up at him with those limpid eyes. Wanting to ask if he's found anyone but terrified of the answer Ichigo will give.

Ichigo inhales carefully, nose wrinkling. A month later and the battlefield still smells of death. Of ash and blood. There are echoes of screams, cries of terror, weeping. It's been a month, and Ichigo can't escape the ghosts. He's not sure he wants to.

His body aches. His reiatsu is a tired throb inside his body. He's set Zangetsu aside a long time ago. The Shinigami digging around him are all strangers, but Ichigo feels an odd kinship with them. Their grieving, determined, and relentless pursuit through rubble.

Ichigo's not looking for anyone in particular. He's just looking. It's all he can do now. It's all he's good for. It's all that's left.

Licking his lips with a dry tongue, Ichigo sighs and moves on to a new spot, a new piece of land buried with debris. Blood is spattered on shattered stone. There's a scrap of black fabric pinched between columns of wood. Maybe something's here. Maybe there's nothing.

Ichigo grits his teeth. And he digs.

o0o0o

“When do you think it was?”

Ichigo looks up from his cup of sake, where he'd been listlessly swirling the contents around rather than drinking it.

“Hmm?”

“When do you think it was?” Kyouraku-soutaichou repeats, looking half-lost as he sits back in his chair. He stares out the window, face pensive and drawn. “At what point, did Aizen almost win?”

Ichigo slumps. “I don't know how to answer that. Would it matter if I did?”

“Maybe,” Shunsui replies, and the fingers of one hand drums on his desktop. The others rise to rub at his forehead, another headache perhaps. “Maybe if we knew, maybe it would make things better.”

“You can't change the past,” Ichigo replies, wincing out of sympathy. He lifts his cup, inhales the sake's aroma, but still doesn't drink it.

“But if we could...”

“When would we,” Ichigo finishes for him.

His gaze lifts again, taking in the tired and worn Shunsui that sits before him. A pale shadow of the vibrant man he had once been.

He doesn't smile much. There isn't reason to smile. Not with his father and his brother dead. His best friend. His columns of support. He doesn't drink, doesn't laugh. The stacks of paperwork on his desk grow higher and higher. His brown hair turns greyer and greyer. By looking at him, Ichigo would think they'd lost the war.

Except that they'd won.

It didn't feel like it.

“Yes,” Shunsui confirms, sounding heavy and broken. “When would we?”

o0o0o

“Is there any change?”

“No, taichou. Not since last week,” Hanatarou replies, exhausted, dark circles under his eyes, in desperate need of rest. Just like the rest of them, the rest of the survivors.

Not victors. Survivors.

Ichigo sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. “I told you that you didn't have to call me that, Hanatarou.” He offers a thin smile. “Formality isn't really important anymore.”

Hanatarou looks at him, shoulders stiff and voice plain. “It's part of the Shinigami culture,” he replies. “If we abandon that, what else will we have?”

Ichigo doesn't have an answer for that. But he doesn't think Hanatarou expects one. The newly appointed vice-captain instead turns and leads Ichigo down the hallway, toward the long-term care ward of the fourth division. Rarely in use before Aizen's war, now it has only one occupant. The last person Ichigo would have ever expected to take up residence.

Hanatarou opens the door. It's not locked. There's no reason for it to be. They would all rejoice if the resident could get up and leave under his own power.

Ichigo pauses in the doorway, lingering in the threshold, once again feeling like a failure. Like their victory is nothing less than a result of being the last ones standing.

“He likes the blinds open,” Hanatarou comments, strolling inside and opening the window so that bright sunshine fills the room. “There's a detectable change in his reiatsu when it's open. It's not much, but...”

Ichigo shakes his head. “It's nothing,” he returns perhaps a bit too harshly, and his insides tighten.

That staring, empty husk is not Zaraki Kenpachi. Those blank eyes, combed hair, neat clothes, sitting and seeing nothing, is not Zaraki Kenpachi.

Except that it is.

His hands clench into fists. It shouldn't have ended like this.

o0o0o

“You asked me once when it was that we nearly lost the war. I think I know.”

There’s a pause. Hesitation.

“When?”

“When Halibel stabbed Urahara in the back.”

More silence. But it’s contemplative now.

“He was our first serious fatality.”

Agreement.

“And after that, we started dropping like flies. No one else could read Aizen like he did. We were fighting blind. We got lucky.”

A scoff.

“You call this lucky?”

Quiet. Solemn. Painful.

“Not anymore.”

o0o0o

He stares at the small object, barely larger than his hand. It’s hexagonal in shape, one end covered in a clear stone, not quite glass but something stronger. The other end has some kind of digital display.

“What is it?”

Tessai folds his arms behind his back. “From his notes, my best guess is that it is some kind of reality distorter along the space-time continuum.”

Ichigo wrinkles his brow. That can’t mean what he thinks it does, right?

“A time machine?” he asks almost softly.

“If you want to call it that,” Tessai replies and shifts uncomfortably. “I don't know if it works. It requires a massive amount of energy, which I suspect is the reason tenchou never tried it himself. He didn't have the necessary reiatsu.”

He's skeptical, but Ichigo takes the device anyway. “Why give it to me?”

Tessai's gaze skitters away. His shoulders droop. The grief is still palpable even four years after the fact.

“He would have wanted you to have it.”

Urahara has – had – has a dozen or more experiments in his laboratory, some of them finished, some of them not. Tessai could have easily chosen one of those to bring to Ichigo. Instead, he arrives with an item best described as a time machine.

“I see,” Ichigo allows. “Thank you, Tessai.”

The man nods and excuses himself, heading back to the living world and Uryuu and Jinta, who need him now more than ever. Leaving Ichigo to stare at the device, a wild part of him wondering if it works. An insane part of him wanting to try. A desperate side of him needing it to function.

When has anything of Urahara’s ever failed?

o0o0o

“We could do it.”

Pleading. Begging even.

“We don't even know if it works.”

“His inventions always work.”

Determination. Need.

“At what cost, Ichigo?”

“I don't know. But I imagine it's not any worse than what we're enduring now.”

“We won. That should be enough.”

Silence. Pain.

“You know, Shunsui, I'm not entirely sure that we did.”

o0o0o

“You're crazy.” Rukia shakes her head. “It sounds like suicide. You're going to get yourself killed.”

Ichigo listlessly pushes his chopsticks through his food. “I think it’ll work.”

“And if you fail? What then?” she demands and slams back her sake like its water, like the harsh burn of it doesn't even faze her anymore. “You can't change the past. It's impossible. What happened, happened.”

He lifts his eyes. “You don't know that for sure. I have to try. I have to do... something.”

“No, you don't,” Rukia shoots back. Now, she looks pained as she sets down her chopsticks and reaches for his hand, covering it with her warm fingers. “I miss them, too. I want them back more than anything. But not if I have to lose you in the process. I can't do that, Ichigo.” Her thumb rubs over the back of his hand, a pale attempt at comforting him. “You don't have to be our hero.”

But Ichigo knows the truth. It's not that he doesn't have to be, it's that he couldn’t be. That for all the power in the world, he couldn't stop Ulquiorra and his band of Arrancar from wiping out the sixth division. He couldn't prevent Barragan from tearing apart Isshin. He couldn't protect Yachiru from Wonderwice and Tousen.

He hadn't been able to do much of anything.

“Ichigo,” Rukia says gently. “Let it go.”

He already knows that he can't.

o0o0o

“No one will believe me if I tell them Aizen is going to betray you.”

Obvious truth is obvious.

“I know. Besides, we can't be sure the device will go back that far. If your body can sustain that much inertia.”

“Later than that then. When I actually have a chance to change something.”

A spark of mirth. Of hope.

“Ki-kun will believe you.”

“He'll be my first contact.”

“You'll need more than that. Find me.”

Certainty now.

“You think you'll believe the cocky ryoka? That I'm a visitor from the future.”

“I will if you tell me all the things no one else knows.”

More mirth. Laughter even.

“...That sounds crazy and convoluted, Shunsui.”

“So does this plan. We're still doing it though.”

“Yeah. Yeah we are. We have to.”

o0o0o

There's nothing to pack, nothing that can go with him. Not even Zangetsu. In the past, Ichigo has his zanpakutou, so he's not worried about that. But there are other things he'd like to take, mementos, items with meaning.

Everything he needs to know, he's memorized. All he needs is Urahara’s device, some privacy, and a location that can be destroyed in the off chance the time machine explodes or something similar. There's nothing left to do except go for it.

Ichigo's said his goodbyes. What few there are to make. Rukia's under the impression that he's changed his mind, that she's right and he doesn't need to fix things. She fully believes that he's starting to recover, that he'll get over it, find happiness.

He regrets that he's had to give her that lie.

Yuzu and Karin don't know anything either. Ichigo regrets that he's leaving them, especially now that both Isshin and their mom are gone, but if he fixes the past, they won't have that loneliness anymore. Besides, Tessai will watch over them. Shunsui won't let anything happen to them either. Rukia's all but adopted them; they'll never lack for care.

He'll miss them. He'll miss them most of all. But he has to do this. He has no choice. This victory is anything but. He has to fix things before he goes mad.

Shunsui knows what to do. How long to wait and see if Ichigo's failed. How to follow in Ichigo's footsteps if he must. He's been as coached in how to handle the Ichigo of the past, as much as Ichigo has been instructed about the himself. They've talked this out, over and over, step by step.

Ichigo finds himself at Soukyoku Hill. A fitting place since it is where it began all those years ago. Though Ichigo isn't sure that hill is a suitable name anymore. Not since the Hougyoku's destruction tore a crater in it and blew half of the rock away.

It's warm. Pleasant. A cheery spring day.

Ichigo stands on the edge and looks down at Seireitei or what's left of it. Surveying the destroyed divisions, shattered buildings, the tattered flags and it's even more tattered residents. There is no corner of Soul Society that remains untouched by the war. Not a one. There'd been no escape. Not even the living world had survived unscathed.

And they'd dare name it a victory.

His fingers tighten around Urahara’s creation. It's going to work. It has to work. Ichigo won't accept failure. Not in this. Not in himself.

He closes his eyes, feels his reiatsu swirl around him, and pours it and himself into the device. Feels it warm in his fingers, pulse and throb like it has a heartbeat. Something tugs at the very center of his being, between his ribs and below his heart. It pulls him inward and upward and backward.

The world dissolves beneath him, and Ichigo falls into it gladly.

****


	2. Epitasis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ichigo abandons his future and heads into the past with one goal in mind - save Urahara Kisuke.

He wakes to bright sunlight slanting into his eyes, nearly blinding him. Ichigo flinches, rolls away from the brightness, and nearly topples off his bed. He feels awkward, unattached, his limbs not obeying him and his skin itchy.

Skin.

Ichigo bolts upward, memories of the last twenty-four hours unfurling inside of him in a flash. He has skin again. He's back in his body, which he hasn't touched in more than three years, not since it was all but vaporized in one of the Arrancar's attacks. It feels weird though, his spirit not settling into all the places right. Tight and unyielding, like a new pair of jeans.

And it itches. Horribly.

Absently, Ichigo drags his fingernails over his shoulder, where it seems to tingle and twitch the most, as his eyes roam over his surroundings. He's in his bedroom, in the Kurosaki household, and it looks like he remembers it did. Like five years in the past before it was destroyed.

How far back had Kisuke's machine taken him?

Ichigo swings his legs over the side of the bed, flings his covers aside, and rises to his feet. Sways a little. His head throbs, and he feels a bit dizzy. It takes a moment to recover. Things aren't quite the same. His body feels younger, lighter, but heavier, too. Heavier now that it's real flesh and blood as opposed to his Shinigami form.

Suddenly, he can't wait to be out of his skin.

He needs a calendar. Ichigo moves unsteadily to his desk, paws through school papers and miscellaneous other things, until he finds it.

He sucks in a breath. One. Two. Gives a grin that would put his Hollow to shame and uses all of his self-control not to laugh wickedly and with unholy glee.

Perfection. Absolutely perfect. He has all the time he needs. He’s in his past. Just after rescuing Rukia and returning to the living world. And if he remembers correctly, it’s roughly a week before Shinji will show up at his school and wreak havoc on Ichigo's sanity.

Another grin then. Feral. Dangerous.

His eyes flick to his clock then, and his expression sobers to something bordering on normal. He should be getting ready for school right now, but it can wait. Five years from now, whatever calculus he's going to learn won't do him any good. He hadn't graduated high school then; it won't help him now. What he really needs is to find Urahara and as soon as possible.

Nodding to himself, Ichigo gets in motion. He showers quickly, still bothered by his skin and even more bothered by the raised marks his fingernails leave across his arms and thighs. He's got to stop doing that, or people will get suspicious.

Ichigo can't afford for them to be suspicious.

They have to trust him. Believe in him. If he's going to save their lives, he has to do this right, or it will all fall apart and dying in the future will be for naught.

It's weird though. When he pauses to look at himself in the mirror, he knows logically that he is the same person. But it feels too much like he's staring at a stranger. His eyes are the same color, but they look darker and more haunted. His face has more youth, but something in it speaks of age. He wonders if anyone will notice the differences.

Ichigo forgoes meeting his family for their usual breakfast madness. He doesn't think he can pull it off yet. He simply clambers out of his window, drops soundlessly to the ground, and creeps through the yard. No one spots him, much to his relief, and he's quick to set his destination for the Urahara Shouten.

Urahara Kisuke is about to get the shock of his life.

o0o0o

Ichigo drinks in the sight of him, trying to pretend he's not staring, but he’s just watching a very alive Urahara putter about his shouten as though it were a novel thing. For Ichigo, it is. He still remembers the broken and battered mess that had been Urahara after Halibel had stabbed him though the back. He still remembers the sharp odor of blood, the torn clothing, the empty shell without a single buzz of reiatsu, the even emptier sheath where Benihime had melted away to nothing...

Seeing him now, alive and well, makes that memory even stronger in the back of Ichigo's mind. He stares at blond hair as though it's a new color, memorizes the shade of Urahara’s eyes, watches the familiar way he moves. Like he's a ninja, like he's been trained to keep to the shadows because he had been. Ichigo watches, and he aches. As much as he is relieved, and the contradiction is enough to stutter his thoughts and coherency.

He's come here with a thousand things to say, and suddenly, none of them are enough. He ends up blurting out the first thing that comes to mind, lacking in tact but then, Ichigo doesn't have enough time for tact. In a week, perhaps a day or more beyond that, Aizen will be taking Inoue. Ichigo has to have a workable plan before then.

“Tell me about the Maggot's Nest.”

There's a clatter as Urahara nearly drops the tray with its tea and cookies. He is, however, graceful enough to stop himself from making a mess and manages to land said tray on the tabletop, only having to rescue the tipped over cups. He looks at Ichigo, blinking, eyes unreadable behind his mask.

“Pardon?” Urahara’s surprised, trying not to show it, trying to cling to his element of mystery.

Seeing him alive like this... it hurts. It makes something inside of Ichigo clench. His palms are on his thighs, fingers digging into muscle, forcing himself to stay seated rather than embrace the man who had been something of a friend. Perhaps even Ichigo’s best friend as war came upon them and Ichigo realized that for all his human friends were the same age, that they were very much still children on the inside. Hell, even Renji and Rukia were to an extent, though in different ways.

But Urahara… Ichigo doubts he was ever a kid. Ever a little boy. And he understood Ichigo in a way the others never did. Understood that no one was more afraid of Ichigo’s Hollow than Ichigo himself. Understood that even heroes needed to be saved sometimes. Understood… everything.

And now, he’s here. He’s alive.

Ichigo will be damned if he can’t keep Kisuke that way.

“You heard me,” Ichigo says and lifts his own gaze, meeting grey eyes squarely. There's no better way to do this than to be blunt. “The Maggot's Nest. Or better yet, don't tell me because I already know. Like how you used to be Yoruichi-san's third-seat. Or how Hiyori used to be your lieutenant and Kurotsuchi your flunky. Or the real reason you were exiled from Soul Society.”

He never thought he'd get to see Urahara Kisuke speechless, but sure enough, that is what has happened. Kisuke has gone pale as he sits back on his and stares at Ichigo as though he's never seen anything like him before.

“How do you know that?” Kisuke demands as though he's abandoned all his usual attempts at subtly. He doesn't even try to deny it.

Ichigo sighs, leaning forward and bracing his elbows on his knees. “You told me.”

“No, I did not,” Kisuke retorts, almost a touch annoyed. “And I highly doubt Tessai told you. Or Yoruichi-san. How do you know that?” There's a touch of desperation to his tone, but Ichigo knows that Kisuke is too controlled to fall into hysteria.

“I answered that already. You told me,” Ichigo says, and lets his reiatsu start to unfurl, slowly and carefully, a background sensation to the truth that spills from his lips. “You want to know how I know, Kisuke? We lost.”

Then he looks up, lets Kisuke see in his eyes all the grief and desperation that had borne using that device.

He earns a sucked in breath. Kisuke swallows. Once. Twice. Executes a slow blink, horror and confusion and curiosity mingling as the full weight of Ichigo's incredibly advanced reiatsu rolls over him.

“Could... could you repeat that?” he asks, breathless.

“We lost,” Ichigo repeats and doesn't flinch at the small lie. To him, that was no victory; there was nothing left to celebrate. “And you had a time machine.”

Kisuke's jaw drops. “I...” he pauses, leans back, rubbing fingers across his forehead. “Impossible. You... that's just impossible.”

“And yet, here I am.” Ichigo spreads his hands, trying to be patient but feeling the noose of time wrapped around his neck. “I'd show you the device, but it didn't exactly come with me. And there are lots of things I could tell you to convince you, but we really don't have the time.”

“Time...?”

Kisuke sounds lost, confused even, as he stares at Ichigo, uncomprehending.

Ichigo rockets to his feet, unable to keep sitting. He feels restless, jittery, his reiatsu coiling in and around him in anxious swirls.

“In less than a week, Aizen will make his move. I have to be ready by then. I can't let him win this time. I won't let him win.”

The last is more of a hiss, a promise to himself if no one else.

Within him, both Zangetsu and Shirosaki snarl in agreement. Yes, even his Hollow. He no more approved of the future they left behind than Ichigo did.

“ _Lifeless_ ,” his Hollow had hissed at him. “ _Boring. Pointless. It's always raining, and there's nothin' so miserable, boss_.”

Frankly, Ichigo was inclined to agree.

Kisuke looks at him. Stares at his eyes and then his face. Tastes the curl of his reiatsu.

“...What did you have in mind?”

With a softly drawn breath, Ichigo tells him.

o0o0o

Meeting Shinji for the first – second – time is interesting. And the moment Ichigo displays his ability to control his Hollow, even beyond what Mashiro is capable of, he knows that the man is impressed. He remains as skeptical and a bit suspicious of how quickly Ichigo mastered himself, but with Kisuke having Ichigo's back, Shinji seems willing to give Ichigo the benefit of the doubt.

A plan is borne, carefully with much room for flexibility, but the fact that Ichigo is amassing allies is good enough for him. He has no intentions of seeing the Vizard fall to Aizen again. The first time is enough, and it's hard to keep his emotions handled when he's looking into the faces of people who might as well be ghosts.

Gaining Shinji as an ally is the first step of many that Ichigo and Shunsui had outlined in the future, Ichigo's present. His next move is to speak with Shunsui himself, hopefully to convince he and Ukitake both of the truth. Ichigo will need their support if he hopes to have a shred of a chance in succeeding.

o0o0o

“You realize that you sound... completely insane,” Ukitake-san says gently, wincing as though his words are too harsh for him to bear.

Ichigo chuckles, but can't hide the bitterness in his tone.

“I do,” he allows and feels Kisuke squeeze his shoulder for support. “But I have an ace up my sleeve.”

He watches as the two friends – like brothers really – exchange a glance, speaking without the need for words. He watches them and feels his heart clench. There is something incredibly unsettling about seeing Ukitake-san alive again, about seeing a Shunsui who is not weighted down by the stress and grief that Aizen's war had caused.

A week after waking in the past, Ichigo still feels as though he's walking in the midst of the Twilight Zone. Struggling against fate to fix the present before it becomes the future.

“An ace?” Ukitake-san repeats and sounds confused.

“Yeah.” Ichigo grins, leaning forward and bearing his weight on his elbows. “We made sure that I'd have something to convince you. Something like who really cut Yama-jii's beard off in your second year. Or what actually happened to someone's favorite yukata. And a certain birthmark on the back of a certain Kuchiki. Or that time you stole Unohana-san’s kimono to--”

Shunsui gasps. “But not even Jyuu knows about that one!”

Ukitake-san gives him a look. “I soon will.”

Shunsui wilts like a flower denied water. He gives Ichigo a pout that’s so familiar Ichigo feels his heart clench, and it’s only Kisuke’s hand on his shoulder that keeps him in his seat.

Ukitake-san and Shunsui exchange a glance.

“Yes,” Shunsui inserts both hastily. “We see what you mean now. There's no reason to go into detail.”

Ichigo steadies himself and arches his brow. “I could. Especially about the koi pond and what really happened to all the fish.”

Ukitake, a faint burn in his cheeks, looks at his best friend. “We think it's better if you don't.”

Leaning back, Shunsui's gaze shifts to Ichigo, looking him over from head to toe as though in deep consideration. “This still sounds farfetched,” he says, stroking his chin scruff. “But I'm willing to trust you. And Ki-kun seems convinced. What do you need from us?”

Their reiatsu still shimmers with disbelief, but Ichigo knows that will change in time. They believe him for now, and that is what matters.

The pieces have been laid, and Ichigo is shifting them into proper position. He now has only to wait for Aizen to make his move. And then, the real battle can begin.

o0o0o

The largest issue with time travel, Ichigo reasons, is understanding at what point changes could or even should be made. Trying to decide what he should allow to happen and what he should prevent. How much can he change before he alters what he remembers of the past, before his knowledge becomes obsolete.

What will he have to sacrifice? Who?

How many lies will he have to tell? How many can he save?

Worse, it all starts to jumble up in his memories. The past he's lived through once. The present he's experiencing again. The future he's trying to avoid.

He can't tell everyone the truth. He can't let anyone realize how much he knows. He has to pretend he's not as powerful as he actually is. He has to fake struggling to control his Hollow and pretend that he's not capable of easily defeating most of the captains of the Gotei 13. He has to look at his friends and family and allies and not see the faces of the dead in them. He has to pretend that everything is normal, no matter how difficult that be.

Ichigo starts to wonder what’s real and what’s illusion. He starts to feel like he's playing one of those role-playing video games. That it's not his life but someone else's, and he's just moving his pieces – characters – as they are designed to be deployed.

He and Shunsui hadn't outlined step by step what Ichigo should do. He knows, above all, that saving Kisuke is paramount. But what about everyone else? Can he just stand here and watch them fall, too?

Does he dare change it?

These questions and more haunt Ichigo's thoughts, invade his dreams, take over his daytime hours. He plots and plans and worries and wonders, all the while feeling Kisuke watching him. Yet, he doesn't dare ask for advice.

There's a reason he's shared very little of the specifics about the future. And sometimes, the truth is worse than any lie. Sometimes, it makes a person break and bleed and die, while the lie can save him. Sometimes, the truth just damns them all.

Time ticks on.

o0o0o

Ichigo studies the board, brow furrowed in concentration, fingers rubbing over his jawline as he considers. Right now, his queen is vulnerable within a few moves, but if Kisuke goes after it, he'll leave his king open to take.

Kisuke is prone to risks in many things, but he’s always been one for observation first. To watch and wait and plot before making his move. Ichigo remembers this all too well.

Ironically, right now, he knows Kisuke far better than Kisuke knows him back. He has the advantage of years spent fighting next to each other, guarding each other's backs, and helping to patch wounds. He knows how Kisuke thinks. He's spent long hours in conversation with this man. Slept next to him in some truly awful places. Had his back in others.

Ichigo lifts a hand, reaching for his bishop. His fingers hover over the piece – white as per Kisuke's choice. Though he knows his friend will come to regret that as soon as Ichigo beats him again.

“Are you sure you want to do that?” Kisuke asks, sounding a touch amused, but there's no hiding the surprise in his reiatsu. He's never seen Ichigo have much aptitude for strategy before.

But then, war changes people in a lot of ways. And this Ichigo has never been seen by Kisuke before either.

“It depends,” the younger man counters and lifts his gaze. “Do you want to lose quickly, or should I drag it out so you can feel like you're winning?”

Kisuke scoffs. But there's a look in gray eyes that prove he's impressed – and a bit shocked.

“Don't get ahead of yourself. I still have a few tricks up my sleeve.”

They both pause then, however. Feeling a familiar swirl of frazzled reiatsu, and Ichigo unconsciously schools his expression before the door to the room can even open with a loud thud. Both Kisuke and Ichigo's eyes sweep over, finding a very worried Rukia standing there, Renji peering over her shoulder.

Ichigo's heart gives a painful beat before returning to normal. He knows why they’re here.

“What is it?” Kisuke questions, straightening, the game forgotten.

Rukia hesitates. Her face is paler than usual, and her grip on her zanpakutou is white-knuckled.

“It's Inoue,” she murmurs, looking at Ichigo. “She's gone.”

Silence then.

“What do you mean gone?”

Kisuke rises to his feet and tips back his hat. His face is still unreadable.

Ichigo follows but much slower. He'd known this would have happened. He could have stopped it. But he hadn't.

Aizen doesn't mean Inoue any harm after all. It's all bait. One that Ichigo plans to take as there are things he must do in Hueco Mundo. For now, however, it’s best to pretend ignorance. Especially for Rukia and Renji. They have no clue, no idea who and what he really is.

And Ichigo can't tell them that it's all part of the plan either.

o0o0o

“You knew this was going to happen,” Kisuke accuses from where he stands in the doorway. His arms are folded over his chest as he watches Ichigo get ready for their trip into Hueco Mundo.

Inoue must be rescued after all.

Ichigo glances upward, reading irritation and no small amount of hurt. “Yes,” he replies and returns his attention to Zangetsu's hilt, where he tightens the cloth wrapping around it.

“Why didn't you say something?”

“I needed it to happen,” Ichigo offers after a minute of internal debate. He could, of course, lie. Claim that he wasn't certain exactly when it would happen or reason that it couldn't have been prevented either way.

However, Ichigo feels compelled to give Kisuke the truth. He's not sure why. Perhaps it's because he wants someone to understand Ichigo's dilemma. Where he's coming from. The weight that rests on his shoulders.

The blond all but gapes at him.

“You... what?”

“Needed it to happen,” he repeats without even looking up. “I needed a reason to go to Hueco Mundo.” Ichigo fidgets with the collar of his shihakushou and turns toward Kisuke, slinging his sword back into position. “There’s something I have to do there if we're going to win this time around.”

A wave of startled reiatsu sweeps over Ichigo. It’s brief but knife-sharp.

“You let your friend get taken because it suited the bigger picture.”

Kisuke sounds absolutely stunned, but there’s something else to his voice. Something with an edge, a bite. And it isn’t just realizing that he indeed would’ve lost the chess game either.

“It's more complicated than that.” Ichigo sighs and steps closer to the man, who without wearing his geta, is still taller than him. He won’t be forever though, Ichigo knows. “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. Aizen won’t hurt her; she's only bait. That's all she was ever meant to be.”

Kisuke's eyes narrow, and his reiatsu abruptly vanishes, clamped down by incredible will power. His gaze is sharp, assessing. Looking at Ichigo like he’s just now really seeing him. As if he finally does see the man and not the boy.

“Bait for what?” he asks softly, but Ichigo can tell that his brain is already turning. Already fitting the pieces together.

Ichigo shrugs. “It doesn't matter now. It won’t work anyway.”

He shakes his head and steps around his best friend, thoughts abuzz, plans coalescing as quickly as they are dismissed. He has to play this right, or it will fail. He will fail.

“Just trust me,” he says, and it isn’t quite a plea.

“You know that I do.” Kisuke's reply chases him down the hallway, sounding almost hurt. “But you don't tell me nearly enough to justify it.”

Ichigo doesn't pause. “I can't.”

That is all he can muster for an explanation, or he'll be here all afternoon. And right now, Inoue is waiting for a rescue, and Ichigo intends to oblige.

o0o0o

Ichigo's not sure who he startles more when he goes after Halibel with murderous intent: Halibel herself or the now bug-eyed Rukia. Both just stare at him in utter shock.

If he has a flicker of guilt for attacking without mercy, for cutting Haliel down as though she were nothing more than an animal, Ichigo lets it come and go. He feels it, lets it fester for all of five seconds, then tucks it away deep inside. Bigger picture. Lives to save.

And really, there is something like satisfaction here. She may not have done it yet in this time, but she stole from Ichigo earlier. She took his friend. She hurt him. She killed him.

Ichigo is just repaying the favor.

Halibel crumbles in a gurgle of blood, reiatsu flaring out in surprise, fingers clutching weakly. Ichigo doesn't give her a chance to draw upon her power, doesn't allow her that extra breath. There's too much at stake here. And he's so much stronger than her now.

Though for the sake of the others, he'll claim element of surprise. He'll claim something.

They'll probably worry about him later. This is Ichigo's first true kill. Ichigo of this particular timeline anyway. The current Ichigo who inhabits the past, however, can no longer count the bodies to his name. In Aizen's long war, Ichigo had been forced to abandon his childhood, his innocence, and what that war left him with can no longer be called Kurosaki Ichigo.

He became something else. Someone else.

But that's okay; he can fix things now. He's the only one who can, the only one who will make the difficult choices.

Zangetsu rises and falls again, blood arcing upward in a harsh spray of crimson. Halibel is still, scarlet soaking the white sands of Hueco Mundo. And before Ichigo's eyes, her body fades to a dark ash.

Years later, he's sure, he'll come back to this place and the sand here will still be stained that tainted black. A morbid thought. But still a satisfying one. Kisuke’s bloodstains had lingered, too.

Ichigo straightens, lowering Zangetsu, listening to the soft drip-drip of blood onto the sand. He doesn’t even need to turn around. He knows his voice will carry.

“Aizen doesn't care about you,” he murmurs. “You're nothing but fodder to him.” He looks over his shoulder then, meeting Stark's startled gaze. “Die for him if you want to. But there's always another option. There's always my side.”

Stark barks out a laugh before he can stop himself. “With the Shinigami? You must be a fool.”

Ichigo reaches down. He grips Grimmjow's body by the tattered remains of his overcoat and swings the unconscious Espada over his shoulder.

“I didn't say the Shinigami. I said me.” His smile is fierce but genuine enough. Thankfully, Rukia can’t see it. “There's a difference, _amigo_.”

Turning his back on the shocked Espada, he calmly strides over to where his friends are waiting for him. Ichigo takes his time though. He knows that Stark won't attack him; he has too much to chew on right now.

His friends just gape at him and then each other.

They are all worse for wear. Renji barely survived his battle against Szayel; only Kurotsuchi's interference saved him from that terrible fate. It didn't go so well for Kurotsuchi himself, but Ichigo doesn't consider him a great loss, not knowing what he does about the man’s future. Ishida delivered the final blow on Szayel, however, and of all of them, he looks the most intact.

Rukia is battered and bleeding, but there's a certain edge of triumph in her eyes. Glee at acquiring revenge over Shiba Kaien's killer no doubt.

Byakuya and Kenpachi are staring, the former with a coldness glazing over his expression. The latter with hungry intent in Stark's direction, as though he has every intention of testing the Arrancar’s mettle.

But they have what they came here for. They have Inoue in hand, currently being looked over by Unohana-san.

They've all survived, and Ichigo's only changing a few key things. He's saving Grimmjow, and he's killed Halibel. Hopefully, the past will remain in line with that he knows. Hopefully, he can still make this work.

“Let's go,” Ichigo says.

Mercifully, no one argues with him, though he can see it building in their eyes. Can see the way Byakuya clamps his mouth shut, the tight lines of disapproval around his eyes.

They'll be suspicious, but they won't believe the truth. For now.

Ichigo can still do this.

o0o0o

For a few months, all is silent. Aizen is licking his wounds, ever plotting in the background, recovering from the loss of five of his Espada. Ichigo knows it won't remain that way for long, and he resolves to prepare the Shinigami and his friends for the war's escalation that’s soon to come.

They have new allies, hesitantly accepted by the Gotei 13, but it's not their decision to make. It's not Yamamoto's place. Technically, they are on Ichigo's team, not under the jurisdiction of Seireitei. Grimmjow and Stark are Ichigo's allies, along with Neliel, and Ichigo has no intention of letting Yamamoto throw them in prison or dispatch them because of their origins.

So far, everything is going to plan.

Kisuke gave him strange looks when Ichigo showed him the Arrancar joining their ranks, but he hadn't argued. More than anything, he’d seemed intrigued. Calculating as his eyes went from Stark to Grimmjow and strayed back to Ichigo.

Besides, Ichigo still has two more things to address before Aizen's inevitable backlash. More demons to be rid of. More souls to save.

Kenpachi's empty eyes and Kira's blood-covered body are all too fresh to him, all too painful. He knows their fates can be avoided; all it will take is a little nudging.

A gentle if firm lesson.

o0o0o

Kenpachi is the easiest to find. All Ichigo has to do is challenge him to a playful duel, and Kenpachi shows up in the practice arena ten minutes too early and reiatsu flaring around him like a rabid dog waiting for the cage fight.

Yachiru is perched on his shoulder, perky and alive, and the sight of her is enough to make Ichigo's heartache. Her face reminds him of the reason Ichigo took this path. Not just for Kisuke but also for her.

And more than anything, she’s just a little girl who doesn’t deserve to die shrieking.

Ichigo doesn't waste time with words. He knows Kenpachi understands action better than any other method. Ichigo will get his point across in the best way for Kenpachi to comprehend the severity of the situation.

He attacks, a kidoh on the fingertips of one hand, Zangetsu gripped in the other. Yachiru leaps from Kenpachi's shoulder with an excited bounce, not quite understanding how seriously Ichigo is taking this mock-duel. He almost regrets having to teach Kenpachi this lesson in front of his daughter.

The first kidoh, a higher level offensive blast that Kisuke has no idea Ichigo has learned, strikes Kenpachi in the face. Ichigo knows it to be more distracting than harming and swoops inward, unsurprised when Kenpachi still manages to block Zangetsu. Their blades meet with a bone-shuddering clash. Ichigo whirls away, impossibly fast, faster than Kenpachi has ever known him to be without bankai. He flares his reiatsu, draws on Shirosaki's power without having to summon his mask, and slashes at Kenpachi from behind. Blood wells in the shallow wound, and the massive captain stumbles.

Ichigo doesn't give him time to catch his breath. To blink or so much as comprehend what is happening.

He attacks again, vicious slices, the same an enemy might use. One who's stronger and faster and has no qualms about killing his opponent. This is no game to Ichigo. This is a lesson that Kenpachi must learn.

Ichigo can't bear to see the past repeat itself.

The spar is over brutally quick. Ichigo allows himself to tap into the skills he picked up in the future if only to make things end even sooner. And when he stands over a bleeding, shocked Kenpachi, he has to hide his own flinch. He doesn't like the look Kenpachi is giving him. A wariness like prey cornered.

Still. This must be done. For both of them.

Ichigo is barely wounded, and as he speaks, each word feels like a harsh critique.

“I've got you down. Defeated. At my mercy and at the tip of my sword.” To prove his point, he lets Zangetsu rest over Kenpachi's jugular, not enough to cut but enough to warn. “And now what do you think is going to happen? What do you think will happen to her when I kill you?”

His gaze cuts to Yachiru, who is watching them with wide eyes. She must realize by now that this is not a game.

“Do think Aizen will care that she's a little girl?” Ichigo asks again, purely rhetorical as he has a decent idea of what Kenpachi's answer would be. “He doesn't follow your rules. He won't agree to fight alone. He'll stab you in the back as surely as he slice you down from the front. He has friends. Or minions at least. What about you?”

Kenpachi twitches. “Make your point,” he grits out, all bluster, fingers spasming as though desperate to grip his yet-nameless sword and cut Ichigo down.

There is every possibility Ichigo has just sundered a friendship irreparably. But he can bear it if it means saving Yachiru's life. If it means saving them both.

“Learn to play better with others,” Ichigo puts in bluntly. “You're strong. But there's always someone stronger. What's worth more to you? Her? Or your pride?”

He takes a step back, removing his foot from Kenpachi's chest and Zangetsu from the man’s throat.

“Think about it.”

Ichigo sheathes his blade, drawing his reiatsu back toward himself, locking it within his control. He wonders if Kenpachi had noticed the hint of Hollow he allowed to leak through.

Kenpachi sits up, gingerly though, and stares up at Ichigo with one eye. Not furious but considering. Yachiru bounces up to his side, avoiding a nasty cut to climb up on his shoulder, she too gazes at Ichigo. But it's with a wariness that wasn't there before.

Ichigo doesn't dare say anything else. Nor does he have to.

He's made his point.

o0o0o

Kira has it in him to be not only a great man but a powerful fighter. What he lacks is self-confidence, the last push to cross the boundary between shikai and bankai. And Ichigo knows, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that if Kira hopes to survive this war, he'll need his bankai. Nothing less than it will be able to take down Ichimaru.

Luckily, Kira is capable of listening to reason, so Ichigo has no need to challenge him to a near death match to get him to understand. However, a certain amount of... misleading is still required. Kira needs a push; Ichigo is willing to give him one and a kick to the ass besides.

Even if it takes a lie to do it.

The door to the office is open. Nevertheless, Ichigo raps his knuckles against the frame to announce his presence.

“Come in,” Kira says without so much as glancing up from his paperwork. He seems tired, the circles under his eyes even darker and the lines in his face aging him considerably. He hunches more than usual, which effectively makes him smaller and more timid, too.

Ichigo bites back a sigh.

“Busy?”

There's a moment where Kira continues to write fervently before he sets aside the brush and looks up. “I can take a break,” he replies and then frowns. “Is something wrong?”

Ichigo shifts, effecting discomfort. He really is getting too good at this. Especially when he doesn’t even have to try anymore.

“Not wrong really,” he begins, tone purposefully vague. “Just... something I think you need to know.”

Kira straightens. “Regarding what?”

“Ichimaru.”

Ichigo doesn't miss the subtle flinch in Kira's expression. Nor the way the lieutenant quickly tries to hide it behind a veil of nonchalance.

“What about him?” Kira inquires, but he can't hide the tremor in his reiatsu either. His hands vanish from the desktop, likely to rest on his lap where Ichigo can't see.

“I saw him when I went to Hueco Mundo,” Ichigo lies flawlessly. “Only for a second. But it was enough.”

He surprises himself with how easily the falsehood comes to him. But then again, all he's been doing lately is dropping lie after lie. It's become second nature.

Particularly when he goes in for the kill.

“He told me to give you a message.”

Blue eyes widen before narrowing into a hard gleam. “Did he now?”

There's an edge to Kira's voice, one that Ichigo approves of. The steel will is there. Ichigo only needs to draw it out.

He nods slowly. “It's not exactly friendly.”

“I wouldn't expect so.” The blond’s jaw sets. “And what did my ex-captain have to say?” He sets his hands back on the desk, under control now.

This is the hardest part.

It took several days for Ichigo to come up with the right phrasing. Something that’s inciting without being openly derogatory and yet sound enough like Ichimaru that Kira could be fooled. Luckily, he also has prior experience to draw upon. Able to recall the taunts Ichimaru had given on the battlefield all that time ago.

Ichigo inhales.

“ _Do ya miss me yet, Izuru_ ,” he recites, as though repeating something verbatim. “ _Be seeing ya soon_.”

Ichigo's gaze wanders away to the window. As though he's embarrassed to relate this obvious taunt. But he doesn't mix the flare of humiliated-fury in Kira's reiatsu. Nor does he miss the hiss of indrawn breath.

“I see,” Kira offers after a long moment of silence. “Thank you for telling me, Kurosaki-san, though I wonder why you would.”

Another lie tumbles easily from Ichigo's lips.

“I have the feeling Ichimaru has a personal interest in taking you out, and I don't want to see that happen.” He gives a shake of his head. “You… You’re stronger than that. Than him.”

A small bark of bitter laughter escapes Kira before the rest of his emotions are swept behind a careful mask.

“When have I ever been stronger than that man's manipulations?”

And now, to dangle the carrot.

Ichigo takes this opportunity to cross the floor and lean forward across the desk. “You are right now,” he says to the shocked widening of Kira's eyes. “He can only kick you around if you let him.”

“How do you know that?”

It isn’t a demand. But it isn’t dismissive either. Kira is actually listening.

“I’ve seen you sparring. With that Hisagi guy. With Renji. You could take them both out if you wanted. Renji is crap at strategy, and you’re just plain stronger than Hisagi. The only thing Ichimaru has over you is bankai, but you could get yours too if you wanted it badly enough” Ichigo lowers his voice then, shifting to something more urging, more coaxing. “Don't let him win, Kira. Prove to him that you're not the boy he thinks he left behind.”

He leaves Kira with that suggestion percolating in his brain. It might take a day or two to work all the way in, but Ichigo knows he’s already won this round. He can see it in Kira’s eyes.

Ichigo thinks he’ll have bankai within weeks. Kira was close enough already.

And just wait until Ichimaru and Aizen see it. Neither will know what hit them.

o0o0o

“I'm worried. He's... different.”

“What do you mean?”

Ichigo pauses at the top of the staircase, hand on the railing, listening to the familiar voice as it floats up to him from the vague direction of the living room. Why is Kisuke here? And talking to his father for that matter? Isshin still isn't aware that Ichigo knows him to be a Shinigami.

Then again, Isshin also thinks Ichigo is still “out” and wouldn't be able to sense his son’s reiatsu anyway. He's gotten too talented at concealing it.

Ichigo hears Isshin sigh. “It's hard to put into words. He's been different since this whole war started, but lately... I don't know. He's rarely home, and when he is here, he's locked up in his room. Also, I can't feel him anymore. It’s like he’s not even there at all.”

“That gigai I gave you isn't the best, Isshin. Perhaps that's why you can't sense him. You really need to let me upgrade it.”

“That's not the problem, and you know it. I'm not stupid, Kisuke. He's not here because he's spending all his time at your place. What I want to know is why.”

Ichigo debates interrupting, but to be honest, he wants to see how Kisuke handles this. He hasn't explicitly said that he doesn't want anyone to know about what he’s doing. But he suspects Kisuke will understand the implications nonetheless.

He dares taking another step, carefully avoiding the creaky board, just enough that he can peer into the room. They won't see him, however, unless they are actually looking for him.

Kisuke is rubbing a hand down his face as he speaks.

“--tell you. It's not my secret. Your best guess is to ask him, but I know you won't do that.”

A look of both guilt and discomfort flickers across Isshin's face; he visibly shifts.

“The time isn't right yet.”

“The time's never going to be right, Isshin. You'll keep putting it off until it's too late. I know you.”

Isshin's jaw sets with stubbornness. “That's why I asked you to look out for him.”

“Exactly.” Kisuke throws his hands into the air, a clear sign of growing aggravation, to which Ichigo can relate. Dealing with Isshin often makes him irritated, too. “And right now, Ichigo's got my loyalty. For too many reasons, most of which I can't tell you.”

A long silence sweeps through the room. Isshin folds his arms over his chest, giving Kisuke a measuring look. Ichigo can't guess what's going through his father's head.

In the past, they never got a chance to sit down and talk about the whole war and Shinigami business. Not like Ichigo wanted to anyway. He loves his father, but Isshin is Isshin, and that’s explanation enough.

Finally, Isshin huffs a breath.

“There's something going on. I don't know what it is, but I can guess it's serious. Just...” Isshin shakes his head. “Just watch over him for me.”

“At this point, you don't even have to ask.”

Ichigo turns and heads back up the stairs, contemplating their conversation. Isshin is growing suspicious, which is understandable. But Ichigo knows there’s no possible way he can explain this to his father. Isshin wouldn't understand. And he definitely wouldn't approve of all the actions Ichigo is taking. He wouldn't be able to see the larger picture.

He wouldn't understand that what lives within his son's sixteen-year old body is the soul of a man nearly thirty. A man who survived Aizen's war, if only barely, and had to watch most of his friends and loved ones die.

Right now, Ichigo is the man who will win this war, and Isshin won't understand what his son will have to do to make that happen. He won't understand the need for whatever it takes.

Even if he has to make sacrifices to do it.

*****


	3. Catastasis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The war continues and the game is on. Ichigo will find his victory, no matter the cost.

War continues. Such a thing is inevitable. For the most part, the details have remained constant from the future Ichigo knows. That makes it easier to change things. To fix what was broken.

And sometimes, reliving battles of the past is more painful than Ichigo can bear. It's a heavier burden than he knew he'd have to carry. It weighs on him, drags him down.

Night is the worst. Night is when his body rests but his mind wanders, memories coming to life in stark relief much to his own heartache. He doesn't ask for them, but they come anyway. Night is full of the past, and while Ichigo doesn't wish to forget, he does hope for a reprieve.

Rarely is he granted one.

The first time Kisuke wakes him up from a nightmare, heart pounding his chest, sheets clinging to sweat-soaked skin, Ichigo stares at him with wide eyes. His fist is an inch from the shopkeeper's face and his reiatsu flaring outward in obvious threat. If Kisuke is struggling under the onset of Hollow-infused reiatsu, he doesn't show it.

“Nightmare?” the blond asks as Ichigo flops back onto the futon, throwing his arm up over his eyes.

Ichigo grunts out an affirmative. There's a rustle as Kisuke settles into a crouch beside his futon.

“Want to talk about it?”

Damn. Talking is the last thing Ichigo wants to do. Better that he just concentrate on the future and the success he's going to have.

“No.”

“Understandable.” Kisuke puts a hand on his shoulder, giving him a companionable squeeze. “Let's get you some tea.”

Ichigo sits back up. His body is still thrumming with fight or flight instincts. He won't be going to sleep anytime soon.

“No. I'll make it.”

“What's wrong with my tea?” Kisuke puts in with a huff.

“Other than the fact it's fucking disgusting?” He throws off the twisted sheets and crawls to his feet with much less grace than he usually manages.

The blond’s lips purse in a fake pout. “I'll have you know its drinkable,” he retorts with an indignant air.

“Kisuke, even if I was in Hueco Mundo desperate for water, I wouldn’t drink your tea.” Ichigo drags a hand through his hair, making it spike in several directions.

“It's not that bad,” Kisuke protests, leading Ichigo out of the guest bedroom he'd claimed for his own use and into the kitchen. “Besides, how would you know? You've never tasted it before.”

Ichigo pauses in the doorway. A dark emotion cascades through him and chases away the humorous atmosphere that had been grudgingly trying to establish itself.

“You forget,” he murmurs, “I've had it before.”

Kisuke gazes at him for a moment before his face softens. “Oh. Right.” His shoulders slump as he moves the kettle to the sink to fill with water. “Sometimes... it's hard to tell the difference.”

Unfortunately, Ichigo understands that all too well.

o0o0o

Time ticks on. June shifts into July, plummets into August, and catapults over September, landing somewhere in October with a resounding clash of the renewing of hostilities.

Aizen is testing their skills, their defenses. Ichigo remembers this battle, remembers it being a surprise that had taken so many of them. Including Renji, who thought himself powerful enough to stand against Ulquiorra alone. He'd been so very wrong, and the consequences were such that Renji's death is the first one that Ichigo learned what it meant to mourn.

Later, there would be dozens others, but Renji's always stands poignant in his thoughts as the first of many to come. It is the shifting point in Ichigo's life, when he truly realized that it was war and many, many more were going to die. The possibility was there, lurking in every shadow.

This time, however, things are different.

Ichigo can warn them ahead of time, and he does. Though he manages to do so without referencing the fact he knows the future. Simply drawing their attention to an anomalous reiatsu that leads to the Gotei 13 discovering Aizen's intended entry point into the living world does the trick just fine.

This time, they lose no one. This time, the Vizard work together with the Shinigami, dispatching Aizen's attacking force of Vasto Lordes without a single fatality amongst them. Oh, there are injuries to be sure but nothing lethal.

A burst of pride blossoms within Ichigo. He can do this. He can alter the course of the war. The proof lies right here in front of him with Renji still alive and kicking and determined to get stronger. If he's embarrassed about siding with Grimmjow to send Ulquiorra fleeing back to Aizen with his proverbial tail tucked between his legs, the redhead doesn't show it. In fact, he and Grimmjow seem to be forming a friendship based on the sheer amount of destruction they can cause together.

‘It's worth it,’ Ichigo thinks as he watches the two – Shinigami and Arrancar – trade barbed words. ‘Whatever lies I have to tell, this makes it worth it.’

o0o0o

It's about two weeks after that history-altering battle that Rukia comes to him. Ichigo, for the most part, has avoided spending time with anyone who knows him well enough to notice the differences in his behavior. Clearly, Rukia has noticed this. Though there's something about this particular situation that strikes a peculiar chord within Ichigo.

It seems... _familiar_.

“It feels like I hardly see you anymore,” Rukia comments as they walk together down the streets of Seireitei, deftly ignoring the lower-ranked Shinigami who stare as they pass. “You've been... distant.”

“I've been busy,” Ichigo corrects and rubs a hand across the back of his neck. “This is a war.”

“I know.” Rukia huffs a sigh then skips ahead of him and forces Ichigo to stop lest he crash into her. She looks up at him, eyes bright and vivid. “But I'd like to think that we are… friends.”

By her hesitation, however, Ichigo is quite certain that she means something else. He's not ignorant of the speculation amongst their friends about the depths of their relationship. He knows that the others already think they’re lovers of some sort, but he honestly thought Rukia was ignoring the rumors same as he.

Could she possibly believe them? And why is this sounding so familiar?

“Am I wrong?” Rukia asks, stepping closer and looking up at him. Something buzzes in the small distance between them.

“We are friends,” Ichigo says definitively, still trying to rack his brain. He's memorized so much of the prior war he'd forgotten some of the mundane details. Like the daily life things that happened between bloody battles. “I've just been... busy.”

“Well, don't be.” Rukia sighs, her gaze cutting away for a minute as she shakes her head. “This war... it's not ending anytime soon. Aizen's relentless. And today was a close call. Too close. Who knows if we'll live to see the end of it?”

Ichigo doesn't particularly like the maudlin to her voice. “We're going to win,” he assures her, though he can't tell her all the details why he knows it's certain.

“Oh, I know that. But it still got me to thinking.” She bites her lip for a moment before returning her eyes to his, something determined shining behind them. “We could all die tomorrow. And there's a lot of things I haven't said or done that I don't want to feel regret over.”

The eerie feeling of deja vu creeps up Ichigo's back and sits on the nape of his neck with spindly fingers.

“Uh...”

Rukia sets her jaw. “And I've decided there's a least one thing I'm not hold back on.”

Suddenly, Ichigo remembers why this is so familiar with a frantic jolt to his reiatsu. His eyes widen in alarm as Rukia leans toward him with intent.

Ichigo holds up a hand, stopping before she can get within a foot of his lips. “You don't want to do that,” he warns as embarrassment tints his cheeks as he remembered what happened in the other timeline.

Rukia grabs his arm and shoves it down. “I'm sorry. What?”

“You really don't want to do that,” Ichigo repeats, shaking his head. “I'm not the one you really like, just the one you think you can have.”

Which doesn't make much sense in retrospect.

Confusion replaces the humiliation coloring Rukia's face.

“ _How do you know that_?”

“Just trust me. I know,” Ichigo retorts and decides that it's in his best interest to lay it all out in the open, here and now. Well, the relevant details at any rate. “Besides, I don't like girls... err, women.”

Her reiatsu flares with utter surprise. Rukia takes a noticeable step backward.

“When were you going to tell me this?”

Honestly? Never if he could get away with it.

“I'm telling you right now,” Ichigo insists diplomatically.

She gives him a look, one Ichigo has learned to identify as 'you and every man I know are morons'.

“And how long have you known this important detail?”

Again, his past self wouldn't have stumbled upon this little revelation until the end of Aizen's long war. But Ichigo, future self inhabiting the past, has known for a while now. It's all a matter of perspective.

“Years.”

Rukia quirks an eyebrow. “Since before you even knew me?”

Sure, why not? Keep things simple.

“Yeah.”

She nods slowly and chews on her bottom lip. Looks him up and down.

“You know, it explains so much.”

Ichigo's jaw drops. “What in the hell is that supposed to mean?”

It's not like he's flagrant or anything about it.

“How did I not see it sooner?” Rukia mutters, clearly speaking to herself and not him. “It must not be my brother. Or Renji.” She pauses, eyeing him critically. “Is it?”

“What? No!”

Ichigo can't hide his grimace and doesn't bother to try. Renji is his friend, yes, and Byakuya an ally he likes to tease, but romantically? Not in this lifetime or the next!

“Not even close!”

“Then who is it?” Rukia, all thoughts of romantic interactions between them abruptly gone as though they'd never been there at all, peers at him closer.

He opens his mouth to answer no one, but then, that would be a lie, too. He's already done enough of that. There is someone who he considers out of reach. Someone who knows the truth about his existence and might even return the feelings.

But the Ichigo this person loves is a lie. A shadow of the Ichigo he used to know. He can't take advantage of it. Of anything. He's been half-lying this whole time. Relationships can't be built on that. They can't.

“It doesn't matter.” Ichigo rubs fingers across his forehead where he feels an aching starting to build. “It just... It doesn't matter.”

It's the truth. One of the few he's been able to keep. Whatever lies between he and Kisuke must be kept platonic for all of their sakes.

It's the way things have to be.

o0o0o

“Aizen-taichou asked me!” Hinamori screeches, struggling against both the kidoh that bind her and the thick metal chains. “He said I was the only one who could do it! He needed me!”

Ichigo watches, completely apathetic, as the psychotic woman is hauled away by Iba and Ikkaku, two of the few people capable of restraining her thrashing form. For such a small thing, she not only packs quite the punch but is fiercely strong. Does the insanity grant her strength?

Beside him, Matsumoto-san sighs. She sounds both forlorn and guilty.

“I honestly didn't…. I didn’t think... If not for Kuchiki-taichou noticing what was going on...”

She'd be dead.

Matsumoto-san doesn't have to say it aloud; Ichigo knows. He remembers her from his past, stabbed in the back, never even saw it coming. Hinamori had been the reason they'd lost so many of the earlier skirmishes, how Aizen had always seemed to know where their troops were or when the heavy-hitters weren't available.

In the past, Hinamori had died at Ichigo's own hands. This time, however, she’d live long enough to be tried for her crimes. Honestly, Ichigo doesn't know which fate is more just. He supposes he could contribute her willingness to betray her friends and family to madness. Hinamori could certainly use the insanity defense.

But in her eyes, she’d do anything for Aizen-taichou. Because he loves her, treats her special, and there will never be an equal. An insanity that's soul deep, and frankly, Ichigo doesn’t think she can ever be rehabilitated.

“We owe Byakuya for a lot of things,” Ichigo says if only to agree with her. “And now, Aizen has one less spy in our ranks.”

Matsumoto-san stares at him with eyes on the verge of tears. “You think there's more?” she murmurs.

Ichigo shrugs. “I honestly don’t know.”

At least, none others had been exposed or made their presence known in the war he lived through. Then again, there were so few of them left alive that sides hadn't mattered by the end.

Matsumoto-san breathes a sigh that might be relief. Her eyes are red. Swollen from the tears she hasn’t even shed.

“I don't think any of us could bear any more traitors. It's enough to dishearten anyone.” She tucks a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “By the gods, I need a drink.”

She turns to go.

Suddenly, Ichigo's mouth is dry. Frankly, he could use a drink, too. A whole jug of sake to be more precise. He moves to follow her.

“I'll join you.”

o0o0o

“Checkmate.”

Kisuke huffs and sits back, rubbing his hand over his forehead. “Nowadays, I can't remember a time when I used to win.”

“Some of these tricks you taught me,” Ichigo replies with a light grin, gaze roaming over the chessboard and recalling all the moves he'd made. “Rematch?”

“So I can suffer through another agonizing defeat?” The blond huffs out noisily, though there's a trace of amusement in his irritation. “I think I've learned my lesson.”

Ichigo shakes his head. “If you say so.”

He reaches out, starting to reset the board. Inevitably, Kisuke will give in at some point. He enjoys their games too much.

“It was you, wasn't it?”

He pauses, brow crinkling with confusion.

“What do you mean?”

Kisuke leans back in his chair, propping his chin on his fist. “You're the one who told Byakuya to take a closer look at the senkaimon records.”

“In a roundabout way,” Ichigo allows and watches Kisuke out of the corner of his eye. “Why?”

“It was a very... Aizen thing to do.”

Ichigo abandons resetting the board. He straightens so that he can look Kisuke in the face.

“Oh?”

Kisuke nibbles on his lower lip for a long moment as though debating his words before he finally speaks. “Aizen used to be good at chess, too, you know. He had a knack for plotting ten, fifteen, even twenty moves ahead of his opponents.” He pauses, fingers of his free hand rapping a discordant beat over the table. “He was unafraid of sacrificing his pieces for the sake of the larger picture.”

Ichigo is silent for a moment. Contemplative.

“Your point?”

“You're becoming a lot like him,” Kisuke replies and is surprisingly blunt about the whole thing considering his earlier reluctance. “Scarily so, in fact.”

Ichigo frowns but not out of offense or displeasure. He cocks his head to the side.

“Is that so terrible a thing?”

Grey eyes widen perceptibly. He's made Kisuke speechless. Unsurprising since he's all but admitted that he's behaving much like the man they’re determined to defeat.

Ichigo isn’t blind to this. He realizes that he's become ruthless in some ways. Impersonal. Heartless. He's had to make tough choices. He's had to consider the costs, the sacrifices needed in order to prevent future deaths. His methods have saved more lives than lost. He's altered the course of the war.

He's become someone else in the process, yes. But then, he wasn't entirely himself when he chose to return to the past in the first place.

The Ichigo everyone in this timeline knew has been dead for a very long time.

“We lost, Kisuke. Remember?” he asks, unflinching in the face of his own lie. Then again, by his reckoning, they had lost the war. It was a Pyrrhic victory at best. “I refuse to let that happen again. And I will do whatever it takes.”

He rises from his chair, leaving the room on that flat statement. Kisuke doesn't try to follow.

This is the way things must be. Ichigo won't – can't – apologize for it.

o0o0o

Battles come and go with startling regularity. They are small skirmishes, nothing more than Aizen testing the waters, stretching the breadth of his reach. Injuries are mild at best, a broken limb at worse. No fatalities, for which Ichigo is grateful.

The current timeline seems to match with the past Ichigo remembers down to the letter. Well, there are tiny inconsistencies, places where once-dead fighters are alive to lend a hand or smaller battles that were skipped because Aizen's forces had already been defeated. But for the most part, Ichigo is confident in his success.

It seems possible; it seems like this is going to work. He's treading so carefully, measuring each choice before he makes it. He's confident but not too bold. He's determined but not unwilling to make the necessary, hard choices. He's doing as much as he can, saving as many lives as possible.

It's a victory in every sense of the word. He can do this. He can win this war. He can change the future.

Until Hell reaches out and grabs him, reminding him that in the end, he's only mortal.

o0o0o

He’s standing in Kisuke's kitchen, waiting for a pot of water to boil when he feels the sharp, stuttered rise of reiatsu. There's something oddly familiar about it. He frowns, senses expanding outward to identify the fighter.

At the table, Kisuke looks up at him, likely sensing the reiatsu as well.

“Who is...”

Another sharp burst, this one stronger, the cry of a Shinigami facing odds that are more than he can defeat. The familiarity turns into recognition, and Ichigo feels his heart skip several beats.

Kisuke jerks up from his chair, throwing it backward. The blood drains from his face.

“Isshin,” he identifies, voice thick with horror.

Ichigo shakes his head. He’s already starting for the door, urgency making his legs tremble.

“No,” he says, near-shouting as he throws open the door and slides into a shunpo effortlessly, Kisuke right beside him. “No, no, no. It's not possible.”

He leaves Kisuke in the dust. In the past, he's always been marginally faster than the shopkeeper, but something else gives him speed now. He's stronger than he's ever been, and there's no one who can match his pace now.

Even so, by the time he arrives, Ichigo is too late. To be fair, by the time he sensed the abnormal surge of reiatsu, it was too late.

What was once a child's playground is now the site of a vicious, bloody battle. The twisted metal wreckage of what had once been monkey bars and a swing set lay smoking in a blackened sand pit. Ash coats the ground in several dark clumps, giving evidence to the Hollow that was killed before Ichigo's arrival.

The victors had fled the scene, perhaps sensing Ichigo growing closer. Ichigo and the other reinforcements he can sense coming. Kisuke is less than a mile behind him, and Renji and Ikkaku are nearby. Nearby but not nearly close enough.

Touching down in the middle of the desolated playground, Ichigo feels sick to his stomach. Blood is everywhere, splattered around like a macabre painting. Nevertheless, he does locate what seems to be the main source, finding a crumbled form wrapped in Shinigami black. A once-white strip of fabric winds around the fallen man’s upper chest; it’s now torn to ribbons.

He doesn't understand. This wasn't how it happened in the past. At all. Nothing similar. Isshin had died protecting Karin and Yuzu. Their house had been destroyed, but the twins had been safe.

Ichigo knows for a fact that his sisters are at school right now, safe and secure, with an invisible (to the average human) Rukia perched nearby. There's no reason for Isshin to have been here. There's no reason for him to have been dragged into battle. He's not even revealed himself to be a Shinigami in this timeline yet!

The truth, however, is in front of him, Broken and very much defeated. Dead. Gone. Again.

Ichigo had failed. Utterly.

His legs wobble, refusing to hold his weight, and Ichigo sinks to his knees. He grips his thighs with white-knuckled hands, reiatsu locked tight for fear of what he might destroy if he loses his control.

He was supposed to save his father. All of his calculations and his plans had indicated that it wouldn't affect the course of this timeline too strongly.

He hadn't even gotten the chance to tell Isshin the truth. He hadn't gotten to say all the things he’d meant to say. He never got to apologize. He didn't get the opportunity to forgive Isshin either. This is supposed to be the second chance Ichigo so desperately wanted.

This... this is his fault. It has to be. There's no other explanation. He's changed things, and now, Isshin's dead, and it's all Ichigo's fault.

Behind him, he hears a sharp inhalation of breath, followed by a brief burst of identifying reiatsu. Kisuke has finally caught up.

“Isshin,” the shopkeeper whispers on an exhalation. “Oh, no. Ichigo...”

He senses, more than sees, Kisuke reaching for his shoulder. Ichigo twists out from under his hand, rocketing to his feet. He doesn't want the comfort. He doesn't deserve it.

“Don't.” Ichigo shakes his head. “Just... don't. This wasn't supposed to happen. This... just don't.”

He turns away from Kisuke, only to be left facing his father's bloodied and broken corpse. He has to... do something. Clean up. Give Isshin some dignity. Karin and Yuzu will have to be told.

By the gods... he has to tell them all over again. He has to watch their faces crumple with grief, fresh and old. He has to tell them that they’re all orphans now. He has to do it again when the first time had been more than agony.

Kisuke, however, is not leaving him alone. “What do you mean, Ichigo?”

“The next attack was supposed to be next week,” Ichigo murmurs, frantically searching his memory, trying to recall the main points of the previous timeline's war. “Aizen was supposed to send a horde of lesser Hollow into Rukongai just to cause some chaos. I don't... I did this.”

“What?” Kisuke sounds startled and grabs for him. “No, Ichigo. Aizen did this.”

Ichigo whirls around, grief and anger intermingling until he can't tell them apart. His thoughts are a jumble. Turning and curling and twisting until he can’t think straight.

“No, I did. It didn't happen like this. But I've changed things. I've failed.” His breath hitches, one hand wiping down his face. His fingers are wet, and he doesn’t know why. “What else am I going to miss? What else is going to be different? How can I fix it, save everyone if nothing's the same anymore?”

His voices rises in pitch, echoing over the destroyed playground. Kisuke stares at him, grief etched into his own features, but he has no words. His hand is on Ichigo’s wrist, and Ichigo isn’t even sure when that happened.

“Holy shit. What the hell happened here?”

A familiar voice makes Ichigo startle. He glances to the left, spotting Ikkaku and Renji as they touch down. Too late, just like Ichigo.

“Hollow attack,” Kisuke answers automatically; he still grips Ichigo as though fearing he’ll suddenly disappear. “Sent by Aizen. It had a target.”

Ikkaku starts poking around in the debris; Renji draws nearer and stares at the man on the ground like he can’t even recognize him. Maybe he can’t.

“Who is it?” the redhead asks bluntly.

“My father,” Ichigo manages, voice hoarse.

He can feel it as both Ikkaku and Renji turn to gape at him. Ichigo can’t bring himself to care.

He opens his mouth to continue, but words fail him. He just stands there numbly, not looking at anything. Kisuke’s grip tightens until it’s nearly painful. He’s pulled Ichigo so close to him that they’re touching from shoulder to hip, but his hand is probably the only thing that’s keeping Ichigo on his feet.

“What--” Renji starts to ask, but he’s cut off.

“We'll explain later,” Kisuke interrupts, an odd note in his tone. “Could you send for a team to clear the area and try tracing the attacker's flight path?” He takes a deep breath and glances from Ichigo to Ikkaku to Renji. “I trust you will handle Kurosaki-san's body with care.”

Renji's eyes flicker to Ichigo, but he nods anyway.

“Yeah, ya know I will. Damn, Ichigo, I'm sorry about this.”

Not nearly as sorry as Ichigo himself. He jerks his head into the semblance of a nod, not trusting himself to say anything else.

Kisuke starts to usher Ichigo away. His expression is unreadable now.

“Come on,” he urges Ichigo in the direction of the shouten. “Not here.”

Not here?

But he can feel it, the trembling in his limbs, the way his breathing has started to increase. He's standing on the edge of breaking, and he can't bear for anyone to see him. It's understandable, but he fears he may let something slip in his grief.

So he lets Kisuke drag him back to the shouten and plunk him down in a bedroom on a futon left messy from the night before. He lets Kisuke set Zangetsu aside and then sit next to him, concern finally showing on his face. Ichigo's fingers clench and unclench. His eyes feel hot, his throat thick, and his body tense all over.

Isshin is dead for the second time, and part of Ichigo just feels numb. Broken. This wasn't supposed to happen, but it did. His fault. His mistake. He failed.

Kisuke is the first to break the silence.

“We didn't lose, did we?” he asks softly.

Though how he had come to this conclusion, Ichigo does not know. Kisuke is not a stupid man by any means.

Ichigo sighs. There is no point in lying any longer.

“We only won in the sense that by the end we were the ones still alive. What few of us there were.”

Kisuke absorbs that for a second.

“How many?”

Ichigo shrugs. “Does it matter?”

Kisuke's hand grips his arm. “How many, Ichigo?” he demands, strongly this time, forcing Ichigo to look at him. “How many deaths are you carrying?”

Something cracks inside of Ichigo. Some measure of control he's barely managed to cling to. His shoulders sag.

“Too many,” he replies, voice a bare whisper. “More than I can count. More than I could bear.”

He sleeps at night, and he sees their faces. He watches them die. And every time he wakes, it's with a greater determination to see that future never come to pass.

“I failed,” Ichigo continues, less to carry a conversation and more to voice the cascading thoughts within him. “My father's dead. I didn't see it coming. I couldn't prevent it. I couldn't protect him. I couldn't save him.”

Kisuke's grip shifts to Ichigo's shoulders, tightening, until he can feel the press of each individual finger.

“You can't save everyone,” the man murmurs with a resigned sort of exasperation. “That's impossible. Illogical. The flow of time doesn't work that way.”

Ichigo knows that. It's why he's been able to reason out certain losses. Why he's allowed himself to accept certain defeats and why he could endure allowing Inoue to be taken instead of stopping that from happening in the first place.

He's not an idealistic fool. But...

He looks up, meeting Kisuke's gaze firmly.

“I saved you,” Ichigo counters because this he knows to be a truth.

Halibel is dead. She'll never be able to stab Kisuke in the back again.

Kisuke's eyes widen, his fingers again squeezing tighter in their grip. “You're going to tell me the truth,” he says then and in a tone that brooks no argument. “About the past. About the future. _Everything_.”

Ichigo nods sharply.

Truth. Yes. That is what he will give.

o0o0o

He expects the war to crumble. With Isshin's death, the rest of the war is surely a collapsing house of cards, a long, quick slide into defeat for Ichigo. He believes that he can no longer accurately predict what Aizen will do because he has changed too much. He fears there's nothing he can do.

Kisuke is the one to shake him out of his pessimism.

“Together,” the blond says. “You know the future. I know the present. We'll do it together.”

And they do.

Ichigo tells Kisuke everything, every step of the past that he can remember. Every death, every lost battle, every destroyed battleground. He leaves nothing out, save for the one detail he keeps to himself. It is personal and of no consequence to the war effort.

Kisuke helps him bear some of the burden, but Ichigo still takes the weight of the more difficult decisions on his own shoulders.

He has to be more careful. Above all else, Aizen must not win. That is Ichigo's only goal. Nothing else matters.

o0o0o

Ichigo doesn't tell Kisuke about the next large battle. He's confident that it will not change from his own timeline because it was a marked victory for Aizen, the attack that took the Shinigami completely by surprise. That had Aizen put into perfect place.

Kisuke is under the impression that the battle was later in the war. Ichigo regrets his lie because of everyone, Kisuke deserves to know the truth. But he doesn't want his closest confidante to bear the burden of this choice.

He has to let Hisagi die.

Inoue was different. Ichigo knew she wouldn't be harmed. At most, she would be frightened, a bit rattled and discomforted. But she wouldn't be killed. She'd live, so while he felt some guilt for letting her to be taken, it's nothing like the weight of Hisagi on his shoulders.

He might as well have killed Hisagi himself. But no, Ichimaru is the one who does it.

Hisagi must die to keep the war on the right course. He's a rallying cry in many ways. Kira's motivations become firmer. Aizen thinks himself to be winning. He'll keep on the path that Ichigo knows best.

He has to let Hisagi die. He has to sacrifice a pawn to win the game.

o0o0o

This is his punishment.

Ichigo kneels on the blood-soaked earth of the battlefield and gently drags his shaking fingertips over Chad's face, closing his sightless eyes. Once again, Ichigo had not been able to prevent this. Once again, he'd been too late. Once again, he had failed.

Or perhaps failure is too strong of a word.

Ichigo's head dips in apology to his fallen friend. His insides feel as though they are being squeezed by a much larger hand.

In his own timeline, Chad had lived through the war. He was scarred, both inside and out. But he was alive.

In his own timeline, Ishida had been the one to fall in this battle. Ichigo had protected him this time around. He hadn't suffered so much as a broken limb.

But no one had been there for Chad. And this is Ichigo's punishment.

_‘I’ve become the monster I am fighting.’_

Yet, the thought does not fill him with as much self-revulsion as it had in previous moments. Ichigo can feel it. Something in the air, something that buzzes with ripe certainty. The war is drawing to a close. Things have changed from Ichigo's timeline, but others have remained the same.

Aizen is getting desperate. The Shinigami have a better foothold this time. Aizen will be defeated; it's only a matter of time.

o0o0o

The smell of ash and spilled blood is heavy in the air. The taste of it is thick on Ichigo's tongue. The sound of swords clashing and kidoh firing echo in his ears. Somewhere, there is mourning.

The Hougyoku has been destroyed but not without its sacrifices.

Ichigo is tired. Weary. Ready to see the end of this. His muscles are heavy, Zangetsu heavier. Even Shirosaki has lost the urge to sneer.

He isn’t without his injuries. One arm dangles useless at his side, blood-soaked and dislocated. He can't see from one eye, and Ichigo honestly doesn't know if it's because he's been blinded or the blood streaming from his forehead. He's wrenched his knee and been sliced in the side.

But he's still standing, and that's what matters.

This is the moment. It has all come down to this.

To Aizen, glaring up at him with blood streaming from his lips, confusion and hatred spilling from his eyes. His army has fallen with less loss to the Shinigami than the past has shown.

The war has come down to Aizen and Ichigo. To Aizen's surprise. Confusion. The bare thrum of his reiatsu as it spills out of him as though it were as tangible as blood.

“How?” Aizen questions. “Every plan I made. Every action I took. Somehow, you knew.”

“I did,” Ichigo answers, his voice as fatigued as Aizen's. His fingers white-knuckled around Zangetsu's hilt. His reiatsu a rattled, wild force that weakens with every pulse of his spirit. “And you'll die without knowing why.”

The overlord's face twists with an expression of fury and defeat, blood bubbles out of his mouth, and the sword at Ichigo's feet crackles visibly like a mirror that's been shattered.

“You've defeated me,” Aizen says, as though his admission is the only thing making it true. “But I'll die with a victory.”

He moves fast, faster than Ichigo could have anticipated, perhaps using the last of his will and strength and reiatsu. And even then, Ichigo feels the hot slice of pain through him before he registers what Aizen has done, that he's struck.

Kyouka Suigetsu crumbles within Ichigo, but the damage is done. The blow is final. Ichigo sinks to his knees.

He should be raging. He should be furious and disappointed. Ichigo should be filled with grief and regret, bemoaning all the things he hasn't done and hasn't said.

But as the black sweeps over him, and the silence where even Shirosaki and Zangetsu have nothing to say, Ichigo feels relieved.

After that, nothing more.

o0o0o

He's in Seireitei, a place he always wondered if he'd ever freely enter again. There, on the Soukyoku Hill where it all began, the world looks a lot different to Kisuke. There's something in the air, something near-tangible, a reminder that nothing will ever be the same.

There's also something – _someone_ – missing. Kisuke tries, but he can't shake the sensation of that lingering absence.

The sound of waraji over the rocky turf announces the presence of another person. Kisuke is unsurprised at his visitor.

“He loved you, you know,” Ukitake says, his voice quiet as he moves to stand beside Kisuke.

Both of them look out over a sleeping Seireitei below.

Kisuke's eyes close as he inhales audibly. There are things he should’ve said. Should’ve done. But Ichigo had been young on the outside if not the inside. And they would’ve had to hide. Had to pretend. And Ichigo had to pretend too much already. Kisuke had wanted to wait. Just a little while. Just until Ichigo’s outward appearance caught up.

He sighs.

“I knew.”

Ukitake blinks. Puzzled. Shocked.

“Then... why?”

“He seemed determined to wait for something. I thought it would be wiser to let him wait until he was ready.” Kisuke pauses, considering his words. “I thought he knew something I didn't.”

Ukitake shifts. “You think he knew he would die?”

“He's not dead!” Kisuke retorts, perhaps a bit too sharply. He pauses to gather his composure. “He was stronger than any of us could fathom. He did not die. But he's not here, and that is also an unarguable fact. I don't know what Ichigo knew. He didn't tell me everything.”

Ukitake’s eyes are sad. So sad. Too sad.

“Not even the things he should have.”

“Not even,” Kisuke agrees softly. He turns toward Ukitake, sympathizing with the grief in the other man’s dark eyes. “I'm sorry to hear about your losses.”

Ukitake exhales softly. “Maybe it's better this way. From what Ichigo implied...” His gaze lowers as he trails off. “In the end, I can handle living without Shunsui. Though what that says about me and my feelings, I don't know.”

“It speaks better of your strength,” the blond reassures him.

“If you say so.” Ukitake shifts his gaze back to the horizon, where pinks and golds chase away the dark of the night. “What now?”

“Now?”

Kisuke feels a smile twitch at the corner of his lips, combating against the overwhelming regret. He doesn’t for a minute think that Ichigo is dead. Not until he sees proof. Not until he finds a body. And maybe not even then.

But he can be patient. He can wait.

And in the meantime, he’ll be the kind of man Ichigo needs.

“Now,” Kisuke repeats, “we live. It's what he came back for us to do.”

****


End file.
